In the communication market, more and more operators seek an alliance to improve competitiveness. Because different operators generally have different frequency bands, a scenario of overlay network working of multiple frequency bands, namely, a multi-band network, occurs. In addition, in a city with a dense population and large traffic, overlay network working of multiple frequency bands is needed, so that there is adequate capacity.
In a scenario of overlay network working of multiple frequency bands, according to the number of frequency bands supported by a terminal, terminals may be classified into single-band terminals and multi-band terminals, where a single-band terminal supports only one frequency band, and a multi-band terminal can support multiple frequency bands. For a single-band terminal, a base station subsystem (Base Station Subsystem, hereinafter briefly referred to as BSS) may store a frequency band supported by the terminal. When performing paging, the BSS, according to the stored frequency band, determines a frequency point where the terminal resides. For a multi-band terminal, however, the BSS cannot accurately know a frequency point where the terminal currently resides. The reasons are that: (1) generally, a multi-band terminal first searches for a preferable frequency point set in a PRL, and after locking the preferable frequency point, the terminal, according to a frequency point channel list, determines a frequency point to reside; however, a PRL is generally set at the factory or when being sold, and a network side (namely, the BSS) does not have information in the PRL; and (2) in a moving process, after a multi-band terminal moves to a blind point within the coverage of the frequency point, the terminal reselects another frequency band, and after locking a new frequency point, the terminal starts to reside in the new frequency point; the BSS, however, does not know this process.
The BSS cannot accurately know the frequency band where the multi-band terminal currently resides. Therefore, to page the multi-band terminal, the BSS, when paging the multi-band terminal in an existing multi-band network, hashes a frequency point in each frequency band supported by the terminal for paging the terminal. As a result, the paging consumption in the multi-band network is much larger than the paging consumption in a single-band network, thereby leading to a waste of network capacity and causing poor paging accuracy.